James Capretta: Is There a Crisis in American Healthcare Today?

Is America the best place in the world to get medical care? How should we think about recent proposals for healthcare reform like “Medicare for All” or creating new incentives for controlling costs? In this Conversation, James Capretta, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a leading scholar on health policy, presents an incisive, nuanced, and accessible account of American healthcare today. According to Capretta, the American healthcare system remains open and adaptive—and continues to offer high-quality care to the vast majority of the population. For access to the most cutting-edge innovations in the diagnosis and treatment of serious illnesses, American healthcare remains unmatched. And yet, as Capretta points out, the American healthcare system has struggled to control rising costs as a percentage of GDP. To meet this challenge, Capretta suggests market-driven reforms that—without rationing care as public healthcare inevitably does—create realistic incentives for controlling costs and public spending. This is not only a must-see Conversation on healthcare. Capretta’s analysis is a model of how to think seriously about the many public policy challenges we face.